Thanksgiving Break

First off, I am an incredibly lucky person. Oshkosh only had school Monday and Tuesday last week, and I don't have Tuesday classes this semester, so I got to go home Monday night. I had almost an entire week off, which is why this is only now being updated.

Monday
My Aunt Debbie and her two boys stayed at our house a couple of nights during break. Of course, the boys are too old now to be excited when Sophie or I come home. I was greeted by this:


Hey, at least they could look away from the computer screens for a minute, right?

Tuesday
I was going to get a picture at lunch, since Aunt Debbie, my cousins and I met Grandma Joyce, but I was smart and forgot my camera at home.


This is not my grandma. Or any of my relatives. Or even lunch. This is Trooper, making weird dog eyes at me.

Wednesday
Pie! Glorious apple pie! Aunt Debbie made both an apple and a blueberry pie for Thanksgiving. I helped make the apple pie.


And by helped, I mean I ate pie crust dough, pie crust cookies, and cinnamon apples before they got stuck in the pie. Here's the apple pie, right before it got popped in the oven.

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving lunch was at my Aunt Anne and Uncle Chris' house, and was absolutely delicious. Of course, I took a TON of pictures, but since I don't want this to be a longer post than it already will be...


The grown-up (and W) table, where I was not seated. Oh well. I got to sit by W later, when we had pie :)


And then my camera battery died. Lovely. Skipping ahead to Saturday...

Saturday
I am not a Black Friday shopper. I think people are crazy. (You don't? Check out this crazy Menards lady and tell me otherwise. Just a heads up, there are quite a few profanities.) I do, however, enjoy a good sale. Like when the shiny 8GB SD card I want for my camera is on sale for $15, AND I happen to have a $15 Best Buy Rewards card.


$1.77 for a card that usually costs $39.99? Heck yeah! 4x the storage space as the card I have now? Even better!

Sunday
Sunday? Not as exciting as Saturday. I opened the fridge to put my just opened and snacked on salsa in, and guess what I found?


Food! My roommate's leftovers from before break! Do you have any idea how nasty those buffalo wings probably are by now? Ew!

Monday
Ok, I promise this is the last picture of Philip's new leaf thing. But look at how much bigger it got while I was gone!


Personally, I'm still in shock that it's still alive, let alone growing.

Happy Shopping!

Just a cute Black Friday thing I found this morning and thought some of you may be interested in:

Thanksgiving Break

I'm home for the holidays this week, so pictures from this week will probably be posted sometime around Tuesday. Have a happy and safe holiday!

What a great weekend!

This weekend was full of awesome things: handmade goodies, Christmas shopping, Harry Potter, adorable kittens, and awesome friends :)

Thursday
Ok, I know I posted about Philip's new leaf thing on Wednesday, BUT! after I had done so, it was suggested that I take a picture of it with a penny for scale, so here's that:


Pretty tiny, huh?

Friday
I was in bed by 10:30 on Friday. Possibly this is strange for a college student, but I wanted to get a good night's rest before Saturday. Not only did I have plans with my friends to see the new Harry Potter movie, but Jonathan and I were planning on going to Handmade for the Holidays.


Sound like fun?

Saturday
The best day of the weekend, by far. First Jonathan and I got up early for breakfast, then we hopped on the bus and rode downtown to get to Handmade for the Holidays.


It was quite lovely :) I managed to snag a cute headband, and I picked up a couple little things to stick in with my sister's Christmas presents.

Sunday
Kittens!


This one did NOT want people to hold her. She was quite squirmy, but she did enjoy playing with us.

Happy Christmas Cactus!

Apparently, Philip is doing quite well for a dorm plant- I noticed a tiny little new leaf/section thing sprouting out.


Ok, so it's only like the size of my pinky nail (if that), but it has to start somewhere, right? I'm glad it's perked up since I picked it up earlier in the fall- maybe I'll see some flowers later? That would be really exciting :)

Yesterday
Every year on campus, we have a program called the Tunnel of Oppression, which, yeah, is kind of depressing, but also fairly educational (though some sections are presented far better than others). Anyway, as part of their marketing campaign, they hand out buttons reminding everyone to be nice, respect each other, etc.


I got Plato-buttoned. Cool, cause that one was my favorite, but they were all pretty awesome.

Monday
Mondays are busy, as I believe I've mentioned before. I have a once a week, 3 hour long class that focuses on literary criticism and The Tome. Anyway, every week, we have different articles we're assigned to read, and then depending on the article, 1-2 people present on it. Last week, I presented on Cixous' "The Laugh of the Medusa." French feminism. Cool? Anyway, Christine and I were really worried we were off on it, but then I got this back:


A particularly good job trying to capture her tone, you say? Awesome! That's one of the best compliments I've heard from this professor all semester! And, if was apparently the difference between an A- and a B. Extra cool.

Ok, I'm behind again

Here's the thing. We're getting dangerously close to Thanksgiving break. Which means that everybody and their mother is just piling the homework on. I didn't take pictures this weekend. Why? Because I was either sleeping or glued to The Tome. Remember that? It's still terrible. Here's the rest of last week:

Monday
Somehow, I naively, thought that I'd have time to do fun things this week, so I downloaded Plants vs. Zombies for my iPod.


Trust me when I say, it's pretty awesome. Who doesn't like plants that shoot peas at zombies and sunflowers that pop out little suns?

Tuesday
My roommate went home the same weekend I did. She came back with this:


If you think it's something you could get used to, or that after awhile it gets less creepy, you're wrong. Very, very wrong. Those eyes are so big that no matter where you are in the room, it's looking at you. And giving you one creeptastic smile.

Wednesday
I had a math test! (I got an 80!) It was also a really nice day out. However, this is Wisconsin, so I'm expecting snow any minute here.


I figured that this would be the last time I'm going to see green grass for a loooooooooooong time.

Thursday
It was a very sad day for Jon. He decided that, since he recently bought a computer (and they have cheaper and better games), and that he rarely uses his xbox anymore, that he would sell it.


Still, it was pretty sad to pack it up. He feels better that it's going to a good home- our friend's roommate NEEDED it so she could play Assassin's Creed. I don't get it, but whatever. Not a video game person.

Friday
This counted as the weekend, which I already explained was not photographed due to my being stuck with The Tome.

UWO won the GLACURH region SOY!

I went home this weekend, and it was WONDERFUL. I absolutely love getting to sleep in my own bed- dorm beds are just so tiny! It was a nice, relaxing weekend, and I managed to get some work done, too :)

Also, if you're wondering about the title, it means awesome things. Like that Oshkosh will get to present its bid for School of the Year at the national level! (we just got through the regional level this weekend) It's wicked exciting because it was a really big project for USRH- we were working right up to the last minute- so now we're all extremely excited.

Friday
I got home around dinner, although I had already eaten since I was starving when we left Oshkosh. Anyway, I got to hear Brenna practice her cello, which she's definitely been improving on.


I remember when she first started playing, hearing her practice wasn't so fun. But now she's getting pretty good :)

Saturday
I slept until 9:30 and it. was. GLORIOUS. I didn't even want to get out of bed until Mom mentioned that they were going grocery shopping. I figured it would be a good time to mention how much I would love some more chips and salsa. Plus, we were stopping at a bakery and who doesn't love doughnuts? We also met my Aunt Anne at the mall that afternoon for a little bit of shopping (I got a fun skirt and belt AND Sophie and Brenna's Christmas presents!). After that, though, I spent a good chunk of time on homework.


Except that my desk looked like that, so I ended up working in the family room. Thank god for wireless internet and laptops, or I would have had to tame that AND write a 9 page paper on scholarly journals! I really do need to work on that, though. Perhaps over winter break, since I won't have terrible school work then.

Sunday
Remember my post awhile back about my wall art? Well, Brenna decided to draw a few pictures for me, so I could get some color up there.


I think my favorite is the jellyfish- every time I look at it I can't help but think of this scene from Spongebob.

Goodbye, Bones!

Yesterday
Meet Bones. My roommate found him at the Dollar Tree and thought he'd make a good door dec for Halloween. Apparently the girls on our floor thought he needed some cash.


The CAs, however, thought Bones was a policy violation- he's covering both our room number and our spy hole. Since Halloween is over, I don't mind seeing him go.

Today
On campus, we have these things called TitanDollars- a campus currency that we can use at the Union, in vending machines, for laundry, at the bookstore, etc. It's been cold lately, and today it actually snowed a bit. Just a little. And none has stuck so far (for which I am INCREDIBLY thankful). So because it's been cold and it's now starting to snow, I ventured into the bookstore to see if I could find some mittens.


And I did find mittens. But even better than mittens- I found mittens that are also fingerless gloves! So I can still do things like unlock doors and unzip my backpack to get my keys while still being really warm (50/50 cotton/wool blend ftw)! Even more exciting! These are fair trade mitten/gloves, knit by women in Ecuador. Did you know that UW Oshkosh was the first fair trade university in the nation? (article here) It's just one of the things we do to be a more sustainable campus :)

Happy November!

Happy November, everyone! I can honestly say that even though I live in WI and really dislike cold and snow and winter, I've been looking forward to November all year. Can you spot the reasons why?


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! I love the Harry Potter books, and I like the movies quite a bit, too. This one looks epic. In case you've somehow missed out on it. Also, Thanksgiving. Not only do I get a break from school, but it also has by far the best food from any holiday.

Anyway, while thinking for a picture for today, I realized that I'm about a month behind on some fun news. It would seem that Jon and I have been together for a little bit over a year (says our friends. apparently we're both really bad at remembering these things).


So he adopted a koala for me through the World Wildlife Foundation (now that I think about it, this may be why I was sent that adventure magazine). WWF sent me an adoption certificate, a picture of the real koala in Australia, and a cuddly stuffed koala. I thought it was pretty sweet :)

Now get out and vote!

Halloween Weekend

Thursday
Friday night, my friends Ben and Andy were having a Halloween party at their apartment. Thursday, then, was Halloween prep. I made sure I had all of the pieces for my costume (my goal, which I met, was to assemble a Halloween costume fitting our mini-theme and to spend less than $20), and painted my nails.


Can you guess the theme?

Friday
Party! Although you would never have know if you saw what Ben spent most of the night doing.


Yes. He spent the night knitting. He says it's to surprise his sister with for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows later this month. I thought it was pretty cool, although not part of the previously-agreed upon theme.


Kristen and Molly dressed out of theme as well, but Kristen HAD to be crayon when she saw the costume. And I really have to applaud them for ignoring the sexy crayon outfit. Sexy crayon? Really?


Nananananananananana BATMAN! Originally we had more villains in the group- we were also supposed to have a Riddler, Bane, Scarecrow, and Penguin as well. Sadly, Bane had to work and the rest were busy.

Saturday
Let me just say, there is nothing is more fun than getting things in the mail. Especially at school. So I was really excited when I checked my email on Saturday and saw that I had a package, and to please come to the front desk with my ID to check it out. I wasn't expecting anything, and I didn't know what it was when I picked it up. It felt like a book maybe.


I was not expecting this. Especially because I'm not overly outdoorsy. And because I'm a college student and therefore can't afford an almost $10,000 trip to China to play with pandas. I did flip through it, though, and it actually sounds pretty cool. I guess this company, Natural Habitat Adventures, does safari-like expeditions in more remote (less touristy) areas. They're really eco-friendly and are partnered with the World Wildlife Foundation. So I guess if I happen to win the lottery, I would probably want to do something like this. The trips look pretty amazing, and even the tents sound pretty nice (one of the Africa trips boasts "spacious walk-in tents with full beds with linens, en suite bathrooms, hanging wardrobes, interior tables and private verandas").

Sunday
Late September/ early October was really busy for USRH- we were working on School of the Year and Advisor of the Year bids to present at a regional conference (which would then move on to national). Our bid for SOY will be heard at a conference this weekend, actually. Anyway, along with something like 15 other USRHers, I helped get the bid ready. When I woke up Sunday morning, I found an envelope with my name taped to the door.


I found this inside, a nice little thank you from one of the exec board members for helping out. Apparently she spent Saturday afternoon making these cards for everyone who helped on the bids. It was a nice way to start of the day- a little reminder that our hard work will finally pay off soon :)